Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM)

The Council’s requirement is for a recognised whole school equality, inclusion and safeguarding accreditation framework designed specifically for education settings, providing external validation, nationally recognised accreditation, and a structured evidence framework aligned to leadership, curriculum delivery, learner wellbeing, safeguarding and inclusion. The accreditation must support continuity of improvement planning, comparability over time and consistency of standards across participating schools.

IQM is the sole owner and provider of the Inclusion Quality Mark framework, methodology, assessment model and associated accreditation marks. IQM retains exclusive intellectual property rights in relation to its standards, moderation processes and accreditation system. As a result, only IQM is legally and technically able to deliver IQM assessments or confer IQM accreditation. No alternative supplier is able to provide the same service, accreditation or outcomes.

While other equality or inclusion support tools exist in the market, these do not constitute reasonable alternatives for the purposes of this procurement, as they employ different frameworks, standards and assessment methodologies and do not provide IQM accreditation. Procuring an alternative provider would result in the Council receiving materially different services, leading to loss of continuity, comparability and established improvement evidence. Schedule 5 makes clear that the existence of other solutions does not prevent direct award where those alternatives would not meet the specific requirement or would cause disproportionate technical or operational difficulty.

The Council also notes that a change of supplier would disrupt existing accreditation cycles, invalidate prior assessments and introduce unnecessary burden and cost for schools. Schedule 5 explicitly recognises incompatibility with existing systems and arrangements, where this would result in disproportionate technical difficulty in operation or maintenance, as a lawful basis for direct award to a single supplier.